Poetry was at the center of Jack Kerouac’s sense of mission as a writer. This landmark edition brings together for the first time all Kerouac’s major poetic works—
Mexico City Blues,
The Scripture of the Golden Eternity,
Book of Blues,
Pomes All Sizes,
Old Angel Midnight,
Book of Haikus—along with a rich assortment of his uncollected poems, six published here for the first time. He wrote poetry in every period of his life, in forms as diverse as the classical Japanese haiku, the Buddhist sutra, the spontaneous prose poetry of
Old Angel Midnight, and the poetic “blues” he developed in
Mexico City Blues and other serial works, seeing himself as “a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday.” Many poets found Kerouac a liberating influence on their work: Robert Creeley called him “a genius at the register of the speaking voice”; for Allen Ginsberg he was “a poetic influence over the entire planet”; and Bob Dylan said that
Mexico City Blues was crucial to his own artistic development.
Also available in specially-designed jacket (978-1-59853-194-7)
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
